Independent Institute

The Independent Institute (TII) is a think tank that was founded in 1986 by David J. Theroux, who is also the president of the think tank.

TII has been a vocal opponent of the "war on drugs", immigration restrictions, corporate welfare, censorship, the neoconservative ("Bush Doctrine") of pre-emptive war, restrictions on reproductive rights, and the death penalty. Some of their analysts oppose the dominant view of scientists of the need for urgent action to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

TII, Microsoft Money and Oracle's Private Investigators

In May 1999 The Independent Institute published the book Winners, Losers and Microsoft: Competition and Antitrust in High Technology by Stan J. Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis. A media release promoting the book stated that the book "makes a compelling case that the real danger to American high technology leadership is a too powerful, too intrusive government which believes it knows consumer preferences and needs better than they do." [1]

On June 2, 1999 The Independent Institute "sponsored" full-page advertisements - titled Open Letter on Antitrust Protectionism - in the Washington Post and the New York Times. The ads were signed by 240 academic economists and claimed "headline-grabbing cases against Microsoft, Intel, Cisco Systems, Visa and MasterCard, along with a flurry of merger investigations now under way, would appear to demonstrate the need for a vigorously enforced antitrust policy that will create checks and balances to eliminate consumer harm. However, consumers did not ask for these antitrust actions — rival business firms did. [2] (Pdf) (See accompanying media release). The advertisement also promoted Winners, Losers and Microsoft: Competition and Antitrust in High Technology. The same day, TII held a media conference in Washington D.C. unveiling the advertisements as well, co-inciding with the resumption of the anti-trust trial involving Microsoft.

A little over three months later New York Times reporter Joel Brinkley revealed that the advertisements had been paid for by Microsoft. Public relations manager for the company, Greg Shaw, told Brinkley that "we thought this was an important, substantive letter, and we were interested in contributing to making it visible. In our view, the letter speaks for itself." [3] Based on internal TII documents "provided to The New York Times by a Microsoft adversary associated with the computer industry who refused to be further identified", Brinkley revealed that Microsoft "has secretly served as the institute's largest outside financial benefactor in the last year." [4]

Brinkley reported that while TII's Theroux had "long acknowledged" Microsoft as a funder of the think tank, he downplayed the company's role as being "just one of 2,000 members" which had paid an annual membership fee of roughly $10,000 a year. Theroux told Brinkley that all Microsoft gained was "free copies of our publications, discounted tickets to our events" and denied that Microsoft had any role with the newspaper ads which he said were "were paid for out of our general funds." [5]

However, TII internal documents revealed that Microsoft had contributed $203,217 for the year to that June, making it the single largest contributor. Brinkley calculated that Microsoft's contribution amounted to approximately 20% of the funds in that year from external sources,excluding $304,725 that Theroux contributed to his own foundation. [6]

One of the documents provided to Brinkley was a bill for $153,868.67 covering the cost of the ads plus Theroux's travel expenses from San Francisco to Washington for the news conference. The bill was sent to Microsoft's John Kelly. When asked by Brinkley about the bill Theroux confimed that Microsoft had paid for the ads but claimed it made no difference. "The academic process we use is independent of sources of revenue," he said. [7]

When contacting the academics to sign on to their advertisement, TII did not disclose Microsoft's funding. One of the At least one academic who signed the ad disagreed. Simon Hakim, an economist at Temple University told Brinkley "He should have told us. I would not have participated if I had known. It's not right to use people as a vehicle for special interests," he said. [8] Nor did Stan Liebowitz, one of the co-authors of the TII published book Winners, Losers and Microsoft, know of the company's funding though he stated "it doesn't matter to me." [9]

The day after Brinkley's article appeared, Theroux issued a media release focussing on the origin of the documents from a Microsoft adversary and claiming they had been "stolen". However, Theroux did not dispute the specific funding amounts referred to. He stated that "our final year-end records do not agree with the numbers he had been provided by his source" and claimed that at the media conference he had stated that the Microsoft funding amounted only to 7%. "It now appears the final figure is about 8%, a statistically insignificant difference, and far less than the 20% figure Mr. Brinkley claimed in his article," Theroux claimed. [10]

In June 2000 the Wall Street Journal was revealed that the TII funding documents had been obtained by by staff of Investigative Group International, a private investigation firm hired by Microsoft's rival Oracle. The WSJ reported that while Theroux suspected they had been stolen, those familiar with the operation hinted that they were obtaibed by rifling through the think tank's office trash. [11]

Environmental Issues

Much of the Anti-Global Warming rhetoric published by The Independent Institute is the work of a few persons, and one stands out, both in quantity of releases, as well as notoriety, S. Fred Singer. Some of the other analysts of The Independent Institute agree that the environment is a pressing concern, including the issue of greenhouse gas emissions. Where they dissent from current environmental theory is in the proper methodologies for remediation, and they propose strong private property and free market solutions, a libertarian model for environmentalism.

Documents Contained at the Anti-Environmental Archives

Documents written by or referencing this person or organization are contained in the Anti-Environmental Archive, launched by Greenpeace on Earth Day, 2015. The archive contains 3,500 documents, some 27,000 pages, covering 350 organizations and individuals. The current archive includes mainly documents collected in the late 1980s through the early 2000s by The Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR), an organization that tracked the rise of the so called "Wise Use" movement in the 1990s during the Clinton presidency. Access the index to the Anti-Environmental Archives here.

Funding

On its website TII states that it "receives no government funding. Instead, it draws its support from a diverse range of foundations, businesses and individuals, and the sale of its publications and other services." [12] The Institute does not list its contributors on its website, stating their rationale for this is in compliance with the Donor's Bill of Rights. However, the Donor's Bill of Rights does not require secrecy.

However, some funders of the Institute have been identified. These include:

Personnel

The number of personnel involved in the Independent Institute as Directors, Senior Fellows, Research Fellows and others is so extensive that it has been posted to a separate page. See The Independent Institute/Personnel